Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-11-14
Girls, Temptations.

All my life girls have made me
their confdante. When l was myself
IA gill they sought me for sympathy
aud consolation. Since my marriage
they have come to me for advice and
assistance.
In fiction and in journalism the
country is always represented as a
place morally and physically healthful
for girls. The city alone is supposed
to TEEN with temptations for them
nocent and ignorant.
Youth is youth wherever you find
it. Young blood flows swift and warm
through pulsing veins. Young hearts
long for companionship, young brains
indulge in vague sweet dreams of
pleasures yet to come. A healthful
young girl can no more be content
with prosaic duties, without one ray
of pleasure to brighten her life, than
meadow lark can be content in a
cage. To attend faithfully to the
most commonplace tasks all day, to
hear no word OF praise for her labors,
and to retire at eight O'Clock on a
beautiful moonlight evening is little
less than torture to girl full OF senti-
ment and underlined longings.
Yet this is the existence of hun
dreds of country girls.
Feminine hearts are never satisfied
with the love which bestows only food
and bodily covering, and finds no ten
derer expression. They crave some
thing more than "good care" The
flattering praises of an unworthy ad-
mirer often win foolish girls heart,
which starves in the atmosphere of
undemonstrative parental affection.
Parents, in the country especially,
are too much afraid OF praising their
children. l believe it is better to risk
spelling a child than to starve it to
death. l have noticed that children
who are freely praised for every task
well performed and for every dutiful
act seldom bring sorrow into their
parents lives.
City streets TEEN with cheap oppor-
tunities for firtations with unknown
men who designate themselves as
"mashers." Only the silliest Or most
depraved OF our sex risk lives and rep
utations by responding to them.
A woman is seldom accosted or
troubled by these men in the day-lit
streets of New York. A handsome
Young girl who earns her living bv
newspaper work, which calls her into
all SO is OF business offices, recently
told me that she had never received
an insinuating or embarrassing word
or look in Ill her career.
The most dangerous of all tempta-
tons to woman is that which comes
through love.
know personally one case where a
young man carefully and delicately
won the confidence and gratitude and
love of a working girl by the most
gentle of actions and a repetition OF
thoughtful kindnesses. Then, when
he had made himself necessary to her
life, he gave her the alternative OF
sharing his unlawful companionship
or never seeing his face again. The
girl had the strength to send him
away, but she never recovered from
the shock to mind and body.
Men tempt women through theii
vanity and affections.
Women tempt men through theil
emotions or their ambitions. A clever
young woman was DESTROYS of living
| in luxury and responsibility. She
worked night and day to improve her.
self, and became q brilliant musician
and linguist. Then she threw herself
in the way Of a man who possessed
money, but whose social ambitions
were baked by an exceedingly COM
monplace and uneducated wife. The
man made comparisons, and finally
fell into the snare. The wife was
divorced, and the scheming young
woman shortly after filed the vacant
position.
| don't believe the Creator made
man any more wicked than woman
Both sexes have the same impulses
and emotions. Women are com
PEELED to fight against their owr
weaknesses, and to combat those o
men.
Where ten women are tempted, two
only fall. Where ten men are tempted
two only stand. And yet we arr
called the weaker sex.-[Ella Wheele
Wilcox.
| Vor.,o,+ ,,<,,, hoe fuantv-aight 9ay